Professional learning courses

Real people. Real stories.

There is not a lot of professional development available that focuses on how teachers and educators engage families experiencing poverty in early childhood education services. Given how complex this work is, we wanted to use our findings to contribute to this gap and support educators’ capacity to do this important work.

In partnership with Community Early Learning Australia (CELA), and with early childhood education expert Dr Leonie Arthur, the research team produced a series of five evidence-based professional learning courses:

Introduction to working with families in high-poverty contexts

No matter where they are based, at some point all educators will work with children and families who are experiencing poverty. This course provides information on the reality of poverty in Australia and the challenges faced by children and families living through hard financial times.  It includes tools educators can use to research poverty in their own communities, ways to identify signs of poverty, and strategies for working with families in high-poverty contexts.

A funds of knowledge approach to supporting children’s learning, development, and wellbeing

The funds of knowledge approach is now included across the principles, practices and learning outcomes of version 2 of the Early Years Learning Framework. In this course we will unpack funds of knowledge as a concept and explore ways of putting this approach into practice in early childhood settings. Funds of knowledge is a strengths-based approach to working with diversity and difference that identifies and builds on children’s existing knowledges and skills to create opportunities for new learning. Educators who effectively use a funds of knowledge approach are curious about the experiences and knowledge children bring with them to early childhood settings. They understand the difference between a child’s interests and the funds of knowledge they hold. They recognise that culture is more than food, celebrations, language, and costume. They use children’s funds of knowledge to support the child and family to feel safe and to extend the child’s learning.

Using effective communication to build and maintain relationships with families

This course introduces educators to a repertoire of interpersonal communication approaches and skills to support educators’ building and maintaining trusting relationships with families. We showcase the many wonderful ways educators in the Engaging Families in Early Education project thoughtfully and effectively used interpersonal communication to make families feel safe, to learn about the child and their home life, and to work together to support children’s learning, development and wellbeing. This course will also help you to reflect on your interpersonal communication skills and how well they are enabling you to meet Quality Area 6 of the National Quality Standard.

Strengthening mainstream ECEC service engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities

In this course, we draw on our research with early childhood services where they share their experiences initiating connections and cultivating relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and Elders. The early childhood services we worked with were all at different points in their learning and engagement with local communities and Elders. The course encourages you to reflect critically on your current understandings and practices and take actions that will strengthen relationships and engagement.

Strengths-based approaches to inclusion: Rethinking behaviour in inclusive environments

This course focuses on understanding how children use behaviour to communicate their feelings. It takes a strengths-based approach that is responsive to children, respects diversity and difference and works with family strengths to support children’s social and emotional learning. It provides a range of strategies that you can use to both design safe and supportive learning environments and guide children’s emerging social and emotional skills.

Each course has strong links to the Early Years Learning Framework, the National Quality Framework, and the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. These professional learning courses offer valuable insights into the day-to-day lives and challenges that families on low incomes experience. We know that not all educators and teachers have gone through financial hardship themselves, or have worked with families experiencing financial difficulties before, so this research provides important insights into what life is like when money is short. The courses also provide valuable insights into how educators and services, whether it be preschools, family day care or long day care, do this important work.

The courses are strongly grounded in data that was generated from our research and they include real-life scenarios as well as the digital stories produced as part of the research.

In addition to these courses being valuable resources for individual learning, the provocations they provide will also be valuable for staff team discussions and mentoring activities. There are multiple ways these resources can be used to upskill teams and support capacity building and skill development in ways that reflect and are responsive to their own early childhood education context.

The courses can be completed on their own or as a series.